


Only Finger-Lengths

by CloudAtlas



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Last Will and Testement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 04:14:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2215425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/pseuds/CloudAtlas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the prompt: <i>Natasha reads Clint's will or vice versa</i>. This is the vice versa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Finger-Lengths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SneakyHufflepuff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SneakyHufflepuff/gifts).



> _The distance from 'A' to where you'll be is only finger-lengths that I see_.
> 
> Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol feat. Martha Wainwright.

“I am sorry for your loss, Mr Barton.”  
  
Clint snorts. “Do you even know who I’ve lost?”  
  
Isaiah levels him with a flat look. “I think I am the only person in the world that knows, _and_ holds the documents that prove, that you and Natasha have in fact been legally married for six years.”  
  
Clint stares at him. He had known that Natasha trusted Isaiah, but he hadn’t realised how much. He’d thought those documents where squirrelled away in one of Natasha’s super-secret safe houses.  
  
“Thank you,” Clint says eventually, so quietly almost nothing comes out. He feels like crying again.  
  
Isaiah passes one single envelope over his desk towards Clint. Everything Natasha ever thought important for him to know in the event of her death, in one tiny envelope.  
  
Clint doesn’t pick it up, and it simply sits on the desk between them.  
  
“I – ” Clint starts.  
  
Isaiah waits, and when Clint doesn’t say anything else, he nudges the envelope with the very tips of his fingers.  
  
“I can’t tell you what this contains. She never told me.”  
  
Clint rubs his hands over his face. “But you’re her lawyer.”  
  
“And Natasha is – _was_ – a spy.”  
  
Was. Fuck.  
  
Clint picks up the envelope and stands to leave. He feels like he could come crashing down any second, like his strings have been cut and he doesn’t have the strength to stand on his own anymore. He feels a hundred and like he’s lived to long. He feels five and scared out of his mind. He feels nothing at all.  
  
“Do you want me to tell you what’s in here?” he asks eventually, because Natasha trusted Isaiah, and Clint trusted – trusts, _still_ trusts – Natasha.  
  
“Only if you want me to know,” he replies.  
  
And Clint can see it, why Natasha would trust this man. Clint looks at the envelope in his hands, then back to Isaiah.  
  
“When – ” he starts, before running a hand through his hair. “Will do you mine?”  
  
“Of course, Mr Barton.”  
  
  
Once deciphered, the contents of Natasha’s will are as follows;

    * The contents of her apartment in Avengers Tower, including all weapons, furniture and assorted paraphernalia.


    * Her shitty car, that she was stupidly attached too, currently residing in the underground parking lot in Avengers Tower.


    * The contents of her house in New York, including all weapons, furniture and assorted paraphernalia.


    * The contents of her four remaining safe houses (in Lima, Bloemfontein, Odessa and Seoul) including all weapons, furniture and assorted paraphernalia.


    * The entire contents of no less that eleven bank accounts around the world, containing the money made from freelancing after the Red Room and before SHIELD and amounting to close to US$176m.


    * Her cache, in an extremely exclusive Swiss bank, of untraceable foreign currency (amounting to US$400,000) fake passports and other forged documents kept in case of emergency.


    * Two GPS co-ordinates, one for a train station in Fort Wayne, Indiana, accompanied by the number 39 and one for a train station in Manchester, UK, accompanied by the number 204.


    * An encryption key; the lone item in her lock box in Coutts, London.


    * The words; _Thank you, Clint Barton, for saving me._



But it doesn’t say what to do; either with all this stuff or with a world without her in it, so Clint goes to a bar in Brooklyn and drinks till he can’t see, hating himself, hating the bar and the alcohol and Tony, who turns up to drag him out. He hates the piped music and the empty chair next to him, the empty glasses and the empty space in his bed, the smell of her on his pillows and her shampoo in his bathroom. And most of all, he hates her for _leaving_ ; hates her for leaving and himself for not being brave enough to follow.  
  
Hates that it wouldn’t be bravery, that it would be cowardice.  
  
Hates, for the first time in his life, that he is not a coward.


End file.
